Twins hit 5 homers, turn triple play in 8-6 win vs Yankees

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Most of the highlights for the Minnesota Twins in this remarkable season have been home runs, putting them on pace to smash the major league record.

That mark currently belongs to the New York Yankees, who watched the Twins whittle away at it on Monday night with a powerful start to this series between AL division leaders.

Mitch Garver hit two of five home runs by the Twins, who held on for an 8-6 victory over the Yankees after a tone-setting triple play in the first inning .

"Those are the teams that you're going to have to play at the end of the season if you want to hold up the trophy," said Garver, who has 19 homers in just 181 at-bats. "These are the games that are really good for us, because we're playing against the top level."

Jorge Polanco, Nelson Cruz and Max Kepler also went deep, giving the Twins their eighth game with five or more homers this season. All but Garver's second solo shot came off starter CC Sabathia (5-5), who lasted only four innings.

"Just like our lineup, it's a tough lineup to face," Sabathia said, "so you've got to be sharp, and I wasn't."

Martín Pérez was hit just as hard, serving up home runs to Gio Urshela in the third , Luke Voit in the fourth and AL batting leader DJ LeMahieu in the fifth , a two-run drive that cut the deficit to 7-5.

Nine of the last 13 batters against Pérez reached, with 14 total bases, and he left after failing to get an out in the fifth. LeMahieu went 3 for 4 to raise his batting average to .338, and the Yankees hit multiple homers for the 20th time in 29 games.

The deciding factor, then, was those sharp grounders, starting with Edwin Encarnación after back-to-back walks drawn by LeMahieu and Aaron Judge. The ball went straight to third baseman Luis Arraez, who stepped on the bag and deftly whipped the ball to second baseman Jonathan Schoop in the same motion to barely get Judge. Schoop's razor-sharp relay to first baseman Miguel Sanó beat Encarnación by a step.

"You've got to give Arraez all the credit, because he just gave me a perfect throw," Schoop said.

Gary Sánchez grounded into an inning-ending double play in the third. Judge did the same in the sixth against rookie Lewis Thorpe (1-1), who earned his first major league win with 2 2/3 scoreless innings.

Taylor Rogers got his 15th save despite allowing singles to Judge and Encarnación.

"We could have very easily got double digits tonight," Yankees manager Aaron Boone said. "They made some plays when they had to."

After the Twins lost four of their first six games on this homestand, with the bullpen blowing late leads multiple times, their longtime nemesis arrived at an inopportune time. No opponent drives fan angst like the Yanks, who always have thousands of their own cheerers in attendance to boot. But on a picture-perfect, 78-degree evening in front of 34,627 ticket buyers, the Twins improved to just 37-98 against the Yankees since 2002, including a 2-13 record in the postseason.